Air
by Klioud
Summary: Post-October. Contains Spoilers. Yusuke and Haru enter Mementos on their own.


Haru Okumura is well aware that they should not be here.

The Phantom Thieves had all agreed that no one was to enter Mementos with less than the whole team present. It was too dangerous otherwise. There would be no quick getaways without Morgana. No sense of direction or any accurate threat level assessment without Futaba. No cool heads to give instructions in the heat of battle without Makoto or Joker. There would be no protection against attacks launched from behind without Ann and Ryuji to watch their backs.

But the Shadows have demonstrated time and again that they are oblivious to any who stand on a station platform.

This fact is known to all of them. Ryuji proved it to Haru on her first venture into Mementos. An amalgamation of Shadows had faced the Phantom Thieves as they descended some escalators. Its scalp nearly scraped the subway tunnel's ceiling. So Haru assumed that it could see them. Her breath had caught in her throat. Her hand caught onto Ryuji's sleeve. He stood just one step ahead of Haru. Instinctively, she tried to pull him behind her. _Get back!_ she had shouted.

Everyone looked at her then. Everyone but the Shadows.

Ryuji had laughed and tossed an empty soda can down onto the tracks. The Shadows noticed that. The amalgamation dispersed into its separate parts. Passed the can and quiet words amongst themselves. Haru watched in fascination as one of the Shadows asked where the can had come from. When it looked up at the platform, it seemed to stare right through her.

So Haru and Yusuke know that they are in no danger so long as they remain on a platform. Not that the Shadows of Qimranut pose any real threat to them. Haru is almost certain that she could beat them without the use of her axe or the assistance of Milady. Her bare hands would likely be enough. The thought makes her wonder what it might feel like to snap living darkness into two that way.

Yusuke has come into Mementos to paint. He set his easel up just behind the platform's railing. A folding table on his right holds his paints and a mason jar of water. Mementos gives them no choice in their attire: they are Phantom Thieves even when there is nothing to steal. Haru watches as his gloved hand draws a long stroke across the canvas.

Haru has come along to keep him company. Even though Yusuke should be completely safe here on the first floor, they both know that no one should ever enter Mementos alone. She sits on one of the blue plastic chairs that line the nearest wall. A mathematics textbook lies open on her lap. Lately, all of her schoolbooks feel heavier than before. Her father had always demanded that she do well in school. Yet there had been no expectation that she should ever excel. As Haru understood it, she needed only to do well enough to avoid embarrassing her father. Needed only to be smart enough not to bore her prospective husband. Father had not intended for her to inherit his company. So she would not need to know how to run it.

Now Father is gone. Okumura Foods could be hers, if she wants it. If she is willing to fight for it.

"The human subconscious," Yusuke says. Haru is used to him speaking aloud while he works. More often than not, he is speaking to himself and does not expect her to give him a response. "Subway tunnels seem appropriate, wouldn't you agree?"

She would. But it is hard for her to. Haru has spent so little time underground. Public transit was not often used by the Okumuras. For almost as long as she can remember, Haru has travelled by sleek car. The occasions where they parked underground hardly count. The elevators in those places would whisk her away to the highest floors. To immaculate rooms with enormous windows. All of Tokyo was miniaturized from these high places. As a child, she had thought the city looked cute. She is not so sure she would anymore.

"I suppose," Haru says quietly.

It is so much more interesting to watch Yusuke paint than it is to read her textbook. There is something incredible about seeing his baby blue glove trail colour on the canvas. Then she catches herself. Drops her eyes back down to her mathematics book. Although Haru is good at math, it does not interest her. It only makes it easier for her thoughts to tug her attention away. She stares at the empty tunnel ahead. Catches herself sighing.

"What are you thinking of?" The sound of his voice startles her. Haru turns slightly in her seat to find him looking right at her.

"Nothing," she says automatically. But even from this distance, she can see how the edge of his mouth pinches in doubt.

"Are you certain?" The hand that holds his paintbrush hovers over the mason jar. Her feet draw further back under her seat. Cross over each other at her ankles.

"I was just thinking... I can't see myself here. My Shadow, I mean."

Yusuke seems to consider this. Raising his free hand to his chin, the paintbrush in his other taps the rim of the mason jar. Then he turns his gaze down the tunnel ahead.

"Well, no," he says. "Neither can I. But, perhaps that is because we possess Personas."

"Oh, yes. Of course," she says. "Forgive me— I won't distract you again."

Yusuke turns his head to look at her with his mouth slightly ajar. A second passes.

"There's no need to apologize," he says softly.

Time goes by as Yusuke attends to his canvas and Haru to her schoolbook. But the air inside the Metaverse is different than that found outside: one breathes this air in and breathes out the truth. Eventually, Haru gives up on pretending to read her textbook. She leaves it on the chair next to where she sat. Walks over to the edge of the platform's walkway. There is no railing here to keep her from dropping down onto the tracks.

"Noir." She hears.

"Don't mind me."

"Is something wrong?" Yusuke asks. Haru does not look at him. Just traces the rails with her eyes. These tracks never seem to lead anywhere but in dizzying circles and to dead ends. She supposes that sooner or later its passengers would reach the next station. Yet she does not believe Father's Shadow would have had the patience for that.

"You can tell me." His voice is so gentle that Haru nearly misses it. She is surprised to see him standing on the other side of his folding table. The paintbrush is no longer in his hand. It sits in the murky water of the mason jar.

"My father," she says, "I suppose he couldn't see himself here either."

"Why do you think that?"

"He had a Palace." The words feel so thin. She fears they might tear into nothing if she speaks them any louder. "The people here— they belong. Or perhaps, they're simply not conscious enough to think they don't. But those like Father... they made themselves places they could."

"What are you saying?" Yusuke rounds the railing. Haru tries to figure that _what_ out in the few seconds it takes him to reach her.

"I'm not sure," she says. A one-note laugh slips through her lips as she shakes her head.

"It has you worried, though."

"'Worried'?"

"Perhaps I'm wrong— 'worried' might not be the right word. But, you are troubled." Only a bit of his eyebrows can be seen through the holes in his mask. Haru thinks they might be furrowed. A part of her feels guilty: she had said she would not disturb him. But another part of her is glad for his concern. It is still odd to her that she should receive anything so genuine. She likes it. Finds that she is hungry for it. The thought scares a realization out of her.

"Were we here before?" Haru says. "You, and I, and the others— were our Shadows trapped down here? Or..."

She does not want to say it.

Yusuke says it for her.

"A Palace?" He takes a step closer to her. "Har— Noir. Only those with desires twisted enough to disfigure their hearts have Palaces." Yusuke pauses. "It is true that Oracle had one, but hers was, different, from the others. She saw it as her place to die, not rule."

Their eyes meet. One of his hands finds her elbow.

"Do you believe you would've had one?" he asks.

 _Yes,_ Haru thinks she should say. Since joining the Phantom Thieves, she has discovered that her heart is no gamopetalous thing: it is a rose. Every petal is a desire. One could be plucked from its place and still she would want her father to have looked kindly upon her. Three more could be removed and it would only uncover her longing for her departed mother. Five more would reveal just how much she still wishes she had broken Sugimura's arm into pieces when he put his hand on her. Ten would expose how sorely she ached to be begged to for forgiveness. Would expose the lack of mercy in her heart. Expose all that which bloomed in mercy's absence.

Futaba might have longed to die in her Palace, but Haru believes she would have been ruthless in ruling her own.

"Even if you did, this"—placing a hand on her cheek, his thumb and forefinger press against her mask— "is proof that you can overcome it." Her breath catches in her throat. Yusuke's eyes move as though he were reading a book. It takes Haru a moment to realize that he is trying to read her. "Your desires don't rule you as they did our... targets."

Madarame.

Haru thinks of this man she has never met. Prior to meeting the Phantom Thieves, she had only known him as the signature on a painting. Father had purchased a piece of artwork to hang in his office at company headquarters. It had been a cityscape with the traces of a snowy mountain bleeding through the buildings. Each building had been constructed out of straight lines. Yet the faded and uneven outline of the mountain had looked so much sharper. She cannot help but wonder now if Yusuke had been the one to paint that piece. He is every bit the ice he pulls into reality from his mind. Every bit as sharp.

Yusuke might have once had a Palace. Haru would never blame him for it. It is likely that his desires run as deeply as her own. She has an idea of what his might be: the freedom to paint his own name across a canvas. To move forward without being halted by a hand catching his shoulder. For the hand that does so to only encourage him to keep on going. Only to let him know that he is loved.

Haru raises her hand to cover his own where it rests against her cheek. Tilts her head toward their hands. His arm seems to relax at this. As does the worried line of his mouth.

"Perhaps not," she says. "But then, I wonder. How many times do you think our Shadows stood here, never noticing each other?"

"Too many." Haru revels in how earnest he sounds. They both smile. Lowering his hand from her face, she closes her fingers over his. Yusuke leans a little closer towards Haru. Curls his fingers around hers. His thumb presses cool paint onto her index finger.

The lighting in Mementos is notoriously poor. It casts parts of themselves into shadow. Tints all that light does touch red. Overhead, the strip of florescent lights flicker noticeably. It should be impossible to see clearly inside this place. Haru is certain that she does not.

Nevertheless, things have rarely felt as lucid as they do in this moment.

Perhaps that is just the way of things inside Mementos. That truth should be like air: unseen but _here_ all the same.

* * *

Haru sees the finished painting sometime later. It leans against a wall of paintings and unused canvases. She is well aware that his modus operandi is to paint abstract concepts into form. This painting is a little more concrete than usual.

It depicts a normal-looking subway station. Neither bones nor veins break their way through the walls or up from the floor. But Haru recognizes Mementos by the painting's colour palette: desaturated and reddish. The shadows on the tiled floor have greater weight than the faint forms of the people casting them. The platform is a crowd of shadows and ghosts.

Save for three figures. One kneels at the edge of the platform. Two stand on the rails with their hands extended to the person above them. All are silver and cast no shadows of their own. Their figures are given depth by values of ultramarine and phthalo green. The rails themselves are a flat and rusty red. But further down them they turn pink and yellow. Baby blue and violet.

Haru turns her head to look at Yusuke. Beams.


End file.
